Petition to CA

**tone** · February 09, 2010, 12:51 AM

MCM, the ex-leader of the RTR team, has asked me to post this. I support everything he's saying, so please sign the petition to get CA to make their position clear about game moddability, and to encourage them to release tools to support modders.

Dear Member of the Modding community.

I am contacting you today regarding a serious matter, that being the future of game modification for games produced by Creative Assembly.

I contact you as a TWC member, although many of you will know me as ex-leader of the Rome Total Realism Team, ex-Member of Hex Council here at TWC, and as a previous Modding Representative on Hexagon Council here at TWC.

I contact you as an equal, and the issue in question affects us all equally and urgently.

I contact you to ask for your support.

As you may or may not know, I have started a petition to CA regarding their current and future games, and the availability of modding tools for the modding community. You can find the petition here.

What I am asking for are modding tools, similar to what was made available for RTW, but has been missing in the last release ETW. What I am asking for is more interaction with the modding community.

As you all know, as the series progresses, it is becoming harder and harder to modify these games. Med 2 had extremely limited tools available, and it seems to me and many other long term modders that it is the intention of CA to gradually phase out any chances of serious modifications being done to their future games. CA makes no public statement on the matter, yet when asked, they do not respond to questions with any clear policy.

Countless times this has been requested. I for one, went to CA two years ago and requested in person. And yet, a response to our requests has been lacking and perhaps ignored. Ten years have gone by now since Shogun Total War. People still play that games modifications still.

I ask you, what future does this give us for our mod teams? for our dreams? for our hope to utilize their new game engine technology?

I see this as a big mistake. For ten years now, modders and mod teams have respected the legal limitations of the TW game engines, and many of the belated "innovations" that their recent games feature were indeed conceptualized and realized, often in rough form, here at TWC and the other TW fan sites such as the Org. We have indirectly forced the company to evolve. And yet my friends, you and I know that they could do much much more.

Comparing the TW games with other serious game modification communities, what is lacking is a regular channel of communication between CA and the people who love their games, and their most loyal customers, the modding community.

What I seek is interaction for us. For our voice to be heard, and for the company to respond in a coherent and regular way by giving us some tools that we can use within respectful bounds. To not be ignored. It has been to long.

We need answers to our questions.

If they wish for us not to modify their games, they should make a public statement to that effect.
If they do wish to encourage modding, then they need to release modding tools that can be accessed by us, by license if necessary, so that we can pursue our visions as well.

You and I both know that this will not be detrimental to their future sales. Any new engine they release, each team will want to upgrade after a time. Not to mention the wealth of skilled modders that this will create, that CA could harvest as new employees each year!

The possibilities are endless. All that it requires is vision and bravery.

It can only lead to a better game series, better features, and thriving and ever growing end user and modder communities.

I ask you and your team to join me in this request. There is strength in numbers, and what I am asking of you, for you, may be our last chance to have our voices heard.

How you can help- post a link to the petition in your mod team sub-forum, and also if possible in your fan area. Inform everybody, and ask them to raise their voices.

If you as a member of a team add your post/signature, please state which team you are affiliated with. This will help them understand that we speak together with one voice; that for a matter of such importance we remember the bond that links us together, and put aside our past rivalries, and recognize together that we all share our imagination and creativity that TW games inspire.

Yours sincerely,

Marcus Cornelius Marcellus
Citizen, Artifex and TWC Member.

**Kallides** · February 09, 2010, 03:35 AM

OK so how do we sign? Just copy and paste with our name added on?

**Shadowfax** · February 09, 2010, 08:44 AM

Originally Posted by Kallides

OK so how do we sign? Just copy and paste with our name added on?

click on the link anr write " Signed "

**Kallides** · February 09, 2010, 04:15 PM

Originally Posted by Shadowfax

click on the link anr write " Signed "

Thanks man I feel stupid.

Do you guys think CA will even care? Has something like this been attempted before?

**Beggar** · February 10, 2010, 12:13 AM

Originally Posted by Kallides

Thanks man I feel stupid.

Do you guys think CA will even care? Has something like this been attempted before?

To be honest I don't think this will have much effect, but no harm will be done by signing. Typing "Signed" might just make something happen.

**Aernuss** · February 09, 2010, 03:43 AM

Guys, sorry about the intrusion, I fully support your claims but, as far as I understood, the petition is directed only to team members, right?
Anyway, I would like to ask a question about this issue: if CA gives you now the tools to modify ETW. what would they do then in Rome2 (that will be, in my opinion, beyond all doubt, their next release)!?

**Cyrus the Virus** · February 09, 2010, 04:45 AM

You forgot the link http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=330713

**tone** · February 09, 2010, 05:32 AM

For some reason it was white.

**Ostrogoth** · February 09, 2010, 06:21 AM

I fully agree with that petition. Modding tools are very limited for M2TW especially for ETW. I home CA will not ignore that request...

**Imperator Romano** · February 21, 2010, 02:00 PM

Sorry to bump this but I have an opinion of my own on this petition.
I feel offended that CA continues to ignore such request without at least responding either positively or negatively. CA continues to makes money off this game even 6 years after its release. There are very few games that do that, and in this case it is mainly because the modding community has kept the game from dieing years ago. The regular vanilla is an amazing game but the fact that there are so many modifications out there is the sole reason why people still purchase this game online. Most people even purchase the game without even playing vanilla just so they can install a specific mod. Let's not even mention that thanks to the sucess of Shogun and especially Rome, is that many purchased upcoming Total War series such as Medieval, Empire TW (to the dissapointment of many) and will purchase Napoleon.
We should at least have an answer or we will riot! Grab your pitchforks!

**Durakkon** · February 21, 2010, 02:26 PM

So long as your mods make their game look like garbage they'll be fighting this. You guys are just making them look bad

/signed

**Timefool** · February 21, 2010, 07:38 PM

Originally Posted by Durakkon

So long as your mods make their game look like garbage they'll be fighting this. You guys are just making them look bad

/signed

Yes but if they come to a compromise that if they unlock the files, they are allowed to use your modification, so long as it is public, as theirs, or they are allowed to use it in advertising. I think that as long as CA doesn't charge users to download the mod, then modders would like that compromise(full modification rights in exchange for CA being allowed put their name of it, possibly adding it to some of their download mediums like Steam!).

**Durakkon** · February 23, 2010, 07:20 PM

Most companies are not interested in advertising for a 5 year old game mod or not, and them supporting it via download just means they have to have some kind of tech support for it ect ect....just doesn't make any sense for them.
If I was CA and developing RTW 2 like many of us are praying they are, why would I support a mod community making their own RTW 2 that is probably going to be better than mine? Its not that I don't agree with how you feel, you just have to look at it from a business point of view.

Hell if I ran CA Id of hired half the guys at TWC long ago and canned my staff. I mean, they PAID people to make Empire Total War, they actually paid them for that garbage haha.

**ray243** · February 24, 2010, 07:51 AM

Originally Posted by Durakkon

Most companies are not interested in advertising for a 5 year old game mod or not, and them supporting it via download just means they have to have some kind of tech support for it ect ect....just doesn't make any sense for them.
If I was CA and developing RTW 2 like many of us are praying they are, why would I support a mod community making their own RTW 2 that is probably going to be better than mine? Its not that I don't agree with how you feel, you just have to look at it from a business point of view.

Hell if I ran CA Id of hired half the guys at TWC long ago and canned my staff. I mean, they PAID people to make Empire Total War, they actually paid them for that garbage haha.

Which can be resolved if CA attempted to use allow mods to be the test-bed for new gameplay features, and at the same time, create new features that most modders will not be able to implement.

Take for instance, they ca expand the unit abilities of a late Roman infantry man, increase the size of a unit stack from 20 units to 40 or 60 units, expand and improve the royal family feature.

**ray243** · February 21, 2010, 07:08 PM

Originally Posted by Imperator Romano

Sorry to bump this but I have an opinion of my own on this petition.
I feel offended that CA continues to ignore such request without at least responding either positively or negatively. CA continues to makes money off this game even 6 years after its release. There are very few games that do that, and in this case it is mainly because the modding community has kept the game from dieing years ago. The regular vanilla is an amazing game but the fact that there are so many modifications out there is the sole reason why people still purchase this game online. Most people even purchase the game without even playing vanilla just so they can install a specific mod. Let's not even mention that thanks to the sucess of Shogun and especially Rome, is that many purchased upcoming Total War series such as Medieval, Empire TW (to the dissapointment of many) and will purchase Napoleon.
We should at least have an answer or we will riot! Grab your pitchforks!

The problem is, there are too many people who are so easily sastified that they don't care if the modding community is alive or not.

**sithlord447** · February 21, 2010, 07:21 PM

Plus the fact that many don't even know of us, and/or bought empire as their first tw game and never knew what the older much better ones were like and as such were fine with the comerical piece of

that is empire, ane N:TW

**dvk901** · February 25, 2010, 05:33 PM

We asked CA a while back if THEY could just provide a 'patched' EXE for RTW\BI\ALEX that would:

1. Raise the DMB limit
2. Raise the EDU limit
3. Raise the population requirements for changes from town to large town to city, etc.

These are readily visible numbers in the EXE to anyone who can read the code...255, 500, 4000, 12000, 24000, etc.
We asked THEM because they basically wouldn't allow us to do it.

Their answer was: "We don't have anyone who knows anything about RTW anymore."
That might be true...but it doesn't mean they don't have anyone who can read the doggone code anymore!! And recompile an EXE file.
To an experienced coder, this would take like, gosh....half an hour. Jumping Jehosephat! I would've paid him for his time if that's what it would've taken.

So you see, it isn't a matter of time, money or the people to do it. It's a matter of WILLINGNESS to do something for an older game that people bought from them.
This whole issue with this petition is again, a petition for tools to mod games they SOLD TO TO US, and our point is that this sells their games better, and makes their products more viable and popular. Almost all of the very popular and long lived games I have seen or heard about are highly moddable, and the game makers are very receptive to the input of their fans...some even have millions of fans! So I don't think our requests are so one-sided that it would cost them a great deal of money to grant them. In fact, I feel it would MAKE them money to grant them.

**Durakkon** · February 25, 2010, 07:04 PM

I agree with everything your saying especially that supporting the community would make them more money for future games, although at this point in the life of this particular game, more than likely not. Tribes 2 is a great example of a game that was heavily modded and played for over ten years b/c of the support the community had. Money wise I was referring to this idea of a beta testing ground that thye host and we tell them to implement game play changes...

However, these companies don't keep programmers on staff that just sit around waiting to do stuff, they hire according to what games they are producing at the moment. Even if it took them a half hr to do this, they'd have to hire someone to do it or pull someone from an ongoing project. I find its a shame they haven't continued with the limited options that were available in the previous games though in regard to E:TW and MW2.

My post was part jest in that the mods produced at TWC make the vanilla game look like garbage so they're simply jealous but I feel your pain and wholeheartedly support this petition

**Timefool** · February 25, 2010, 07:16 PM

They should have kept a small team on their old games like Valve does. This team works with the community, fixes bugs, and releases new content/unlock more files.